AsklemmyThis has been on my mind for years now:
Why do most radio stations insist on playing the same selection of songs over and over?
I imagine it must be a copyrights thing? Pay for usage of this particular catalogue for a year?
Don’t those DJs get absolutely sick of it after a while?
Time to switch to a radio station that's not bought by some big money agenda?
I recently got back into somafm again, after many many years hiatus.
When I worked at a warehouse almost a decade ago, the person in charge of the PA system would pipe in music from the local dad-rock radio station. I would hear the same 15 to 20 songs at least three or four times a shift. if it weren't for the commercials I would have thought it was a mix CD on random.
Radio stations used to have actual, human DJs. They were smart, funny and they knew what people really wanted. After the ClearChannel takeover, almost all of those stations are automated. The music playlists are decided by corporations and have no connection to the real world.
There was a radio station who's whole thing was that they would never play nickleback. Then one day they accidentally played nickleback. The Playlists were coming from some head office 5000 miles away, and they missed pulling a nickleback track once it got to the local station.
And the Clearchannel takeover was set loose by the Telecoms Act of 1996. Prior to that, it was illegal in the US to own more than 7 units of media - any combo of radio or TV stations, magazines, newpapers, etc. There was too much media for the billionaires to own it all under the old regulations.
Jack FM was a joy to listen to - at least in the early days - because they got rid of DJs. They wanted the effect of listening to mp3s on shuffle. I have never enjoyed DJs and I think it's pretty common. Just play music and back announce the tracks.
Good DJs can play a set and back announce the tracks. Jim Ladd on KLOS comes to mind as a DJ I would specifically tune into back in the early 00’s. This was because of the awesome sets he’d produce, intermixing top hits with b-sides and deep cuts, truly expanding my knowledge and love of classic rock.
When they tried playing different stuff, people didn't like it.
Don't big record companies just have the 10 hits they manufactured in a laboratory which they test in key markets and then push out to the rest of the world. I remember when I went to Southern California I was hearing a bunch of songs I'd never heard before. A few months later those songs were being played on corporate radio in the EU.
Blame Reagan.
Back when radio was starting, a bipartisan Congress created the FCC. Some of the rules were that no one entity could own more than one AM and one FM station in any market [later one VHF TV channel] There had to be a balance in editorial content; if the station supported Candidate A, Candidate B had to be allowed equal time.
Reagan 'saved' the media by deregulating it.
There had to be a balance in editorial content
This rule was was the Fairness Doctrine, and it was in effect from 1949 to 1987. So it's fair to say that Reagan got rid of it.
if the station supported Candidate A, Candidate B had to be allowed equal time.
This is a different rule called the Equal Time Rule, and it's still in effect today.
Recently this rule was in the news when Stephen Colbert interviewed Senate candidate James Talarico on his (now concluded) show, without offering the same interview time to Talarico's primary opponent Jasmine Crockett. I believe in the end the interview was cut from the over-the-air broadcast to comply with the rule. (The interview segment was published on YouTube, which is not subject to the rule.)
Reagan never ruled on my country and it's the same.
Radio stations play the same songs over and over again.
Can I assume Denmark from your username?
I don't know enough about other countries to make an intelligent comment.
On the other hand, I could write a book on how Reagan screwed up the US media.
Before him, kids' cartoons were highly regulated. After he came in, you started seeing full length commercials like "GI Joe" and "The Transformers."
Cable was getting off the ground at the time, and the FCC could have reigned in Fox News.
How dare you criticize GI Joe
Here's a great story.
Snake Eyes was one of the original Joes. He was made of all black plastic because that was the cheapest thing they could do.
I don't see how editorial content regulations impact a DJ's catalogue?
The part about one entity being able to own all the stations in one town.
Because record label media companies own 98% of radio stations via iHeartRadio, Clear Media and Audacy.
They want them to brainwash the media with their newest releases from their artists to convince them that it's good music by playing it non stop adnauseam
Isn't iHeart and ClearChannel the same company?
Apparently they are which makes this even worse
In the 80s, I used to be a DJ at a radio station, and had the midnight to 6 a.m. shift. In the beginning, everything was OK, we had a catalogue of about a thousands songs that I could choose and pick from. Commercially the station wasn’t successful so very soon the catalogue was reduced to 500 songs, then 250, then to 100 songs, and then to a dozen songs. It was horrible, I had to come up with ideas how am I getting a story up about this stupid handful of songs. I started reading f****g poetry out loud, my own poetry because we couldn’t buy any of the real poetry stuff. I’m not a poet ! So my salary also dropped. In the end, I had TWO songs that I could choose from: BTO’s You ain’t seen nothing yet and a shitty B side by Shakin’ Stevens. SIX HOURS to play just two songs, if it had been at least three songs, I could’ve mixed them, but you cannot mix two songs! Bloody hell.
At that point you might as well start learning guitar on air
That makes no sense? Why not play small bands that would be happy to have their music on the air for free?
For free? That sounds like communism to me!
Does the word "B-b-b-baby" give you PTSD flashbacks?
I didn't have it that bad but I had to spend a whole night as a temp factory worker throwing hay into a machine to shred it into pet bedding and they had Culture Club - Karma Chameleon on repeat for 10hrs.
Liked the song before that night. I refused to work there again after that night.
I had a boss in an office that decided to have an Alice in Wonderland themed pot luck. She turned on the movie on repeat. Then she just never turned off the movie. It was on a screen on low volume right in front of my desk for weeks. She had an office, I didn't. Eventually I sent her an email saying it was phycological torture after like week 3 to have the same movie playing on repeat for 8 hours Monday thru Friday.
I also worked at a video store once that we had to play the promotional DVD on repeat. It was about 2 hours long of footage over and over and we couldn't turn it down.
I feel like that's psychological torture
Should've asked for the two songs to be: What's New Pussycat, and It's Not Unusual.
Calm down, John Mulaney
Oi mate, you got a loicense for that track?
If the station is failing and the track selection was that dire (2 fucking songs??) I'd be contacting small labels / indie labels asking for written permission to play their music and if they can send you a CD or record or whatever. Guarantee you'd get several bites from small artists that want their music heard. Hindsight 20-20 and all though.
Because they are all owned by the same people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_homogenization
Elvis Costello explained this back in 1977: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_24nDzkeo&list=RDeD_24nDzkeo&start_radio=1
Radio playlists are a science like marketing. Half the budget is wasted, you're just never sure which half.
Stations have a target audience. They will have focused grouped this. They know their favorite music, how long on average they listen, and how much they will expect to hear certain artists. The DJs are mere announcers, they have little to no choice in what they play, and they are grateful to have a job. So like anybody working in retail during Christmas, they can tune out the music in their heads.
Yeah it sucks, when I started commuting longer I started to out on the radio as I got kind if bored of my music, at first it was awesome, then like a moth th passed and I couldn't stand it anymore, listening to ads just to hear a repeated song again.
Its like they put the same block of songs at the same time if day so when you are in traffic each day you just hear the same shuffled playlist
Radio stations play what's popular. What's popular is what's on the radio. It's a vicious fucking cycle of self-reinforcement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
TL/DR: music corps push radio to play their "fashionable" tracks.
Radio is a dying market that's going away like so many other things. They don't know what to play anymore. My car picks my phones Bluetooth up when I turn my car on and I can play anything I want. Radio stations dont know what to do because what's classic rock anymore? They'll play like a nickleback song, then back in black by AC DC and then... here's pink floyd simply because they dont know what to play. Talk Radio with a million commercials can't compete with podcasts. No one cares about top 50 stations anymore. What's left? And who even cares? Car dealerships lose because now they can't yell at you about deals that don't really exsist.
It's marketing. Corpos decide what you listen to when you rely on the radio. There's always a better artist or band than what the radio is playing (or streaming services are highlighting) but they may not fit what the corpos want you to hear.
The new underground radio is keying your CB microphone at the speaker from your 8-track player. /s
I don't get it either, OP. If the DJs don't go mad how do the listeners retain sanity? It's madness. (No, really. You have trades people who listen to the same station day in day out and they play the exact same songs, over and over, every day. Those listeners are demented. At that point you're just listening for the ads...) Tune into the local community stations. All the commercial stations are just repeat rubbish. You'll find variety and local music on the community stations. They likely need your financial support too. It's sad seeing these stations shutter one by one...
Oh I would if could, but as you mention=> work.
Generally speaking, public radio stations have far better programming than private ones (atleast in the US) Part of that is they get access to vast media libraries by being a public station, and they also have access to a number of programs they can pay to air. I listen to a local station which public. They play classical and jazz and you only hear the same song maybe once or twice a week, and its because the DJs like that song (Claire de lune comes on about twice a week.) The downside would be the NPR news segements they have to air at the beginnings of some hours.
I'm pretty sure the DJs in my area record a bunch of inserts and bits ahead of time, those get edited and sliced up, and then put into the playlist at the correct positions. So I don't think they're sitting in the booth listening to the music live, and then talking in between, like they used to anymore. So that's probably how they don't get bored, they didn't even hear the music last Friday when they laid down the week's schedule.
This topic reminds of a song from the early 90's:
GeorgeFM doesn't. It plays great music, they have segments during the weekend with a bunch of stuff you've never heard. It's great. You can get it on the Rova app I think
I don't believe there are still human DJs. It's been automated for years.
